Unclaimed life policies and the Eckert law (France)
A 2014 French law, in force since 2016, requiring insurers to search for deceased insureds and beneficiaries, and transferring unclaimed benefits to the Caisse des dépôts.
For decades, some life insurance benefits were never paid: the insurer did not learn of the death, the beneficiary did not know of the designation, and the money stayed on the balance sheet. Reports by the Court of Audit and sanctions imposed by the ACPR on several insurers, up to several tens of millions of euros, led to law no. 2014-617 of 13 June 2014, known as the Eckert law, in force since 1 January 2016. It requires insurers to check the national register of individuals every year to detect the deaths of their insureds, then to search for beneficiaries, under a reinforced duty of means and with a public annual report. Benefits still unclaimed ten years after knowledge of the death or the policy's maturity are transferred to the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, which holds them for another twenty years and makes them searchable through an online public service; after that, they pass to the state. The same text covers dormant bank accounts. The law also regulated the uplift of benefits between the death and the payment, so that the insurer no longer profits from the delay. For an insurer, it is a data and process project as much as a sanction risk.
An insured dies in 2015 without the insurer being informed. In 2016, the annual register check reveals the death; the insurer traces the beneficiary, a niece unaware of the policy, and pays her the benefit uplifted from the date of death.
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